


there's a meme for that

by Frostythespacecat



Series: documents/writing/hl/vrai/benrey sadboy hours [1]
Category: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: (its just calm down blue™ mixed with heal beam teal and green), (not really though i'm mad at keeping track of dialogue), (you get a line and a half of infodump), Benrey POV, Coming Out, Cuddling, Nonbinary Character, Other, They/Themrey, Trans Character, Trans Gordon Freeman, a surprising lack of swearing, adhd gordon freeman, annoying your roommate's brother bc you have no clue what's going on, benrey please pay attention when people are talking, black mesa sweet voice as a form of pain reliever, incredibly vague mentions of menstruation, neurodivergent benrey, no betas we just cry and hit post, nonbinary benray, very quickly self edited, via sending a text with links to health articles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:20:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27536698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frostythespacecat/pseuds/Frostythespacecat
Summary: Gordon rolled over to his other side and checked the time. His lock screen cheerily read 3:16 as he squinted at it.Great. He still had another, what, 2 and a half hours before he could take another dose of pain meds. God, why did his body have to hate him this much?He groaned quietly before sitting and then slowly standing up, pulling a blanket up with him. First, a quick trip into the bathroom for water, then… then to see if a certain someone could help with this.
Relationships: Benrey/Gordon Freeman
Series: documents/writing/hl/vrai/benrey sadboy hours [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2012758
Comments: 11
Kudos: 148





	there's a meme for that

**Author's Note:**

> Okay hi hlvrai fandom. You may have seen me in the comments of a few fics, but here is my first real contribution to this fandom outside of a singular server. And my second posted fic total.  
> If this seems out of character, its worth noting that this is part of a bigger thing I'm working on that I don't actually plan on writing in order, if this being the first to post doesn't show that already. Who knows, I may not post any other part of it at all! I was just. Possessed by the spirit of nanowrimo and Actually Wrote like double my writing goal to get this done.  
> Anyway, for anyone who doesn't feel like looking at my profile, I'm nonbinary! And I decided that Gordon gets to have my experience with menstruation projected onto him (but altered enough to fit with him being on T for a significant length of time)

Benrey was, as was usual while the others slept, flopped out on the couch, controller in hand, head turned to see the tv. They were used to one of the others getting up during the night, usually to stumble into a bathroom or the kitchen. They were not, however, used to seeing Freeman simply walk into the living room, wrapped in a blanket at- they squinted at the corner of the screen as they hit the home button- 3:24 am. As Freeman stopped at the other sidecof the couch, Benrey sat and crossed their legs. Freeman sits, silently, in the empty space and doesn’t make eye contact.

"Hey so," his voice is weirdly quiet? Even for how late it is. "What are the chances you have a, uh, a flavor of sweet voice that also acts as a pain reliever?"

What?

"Uh…. Don't you have uh. Tylenol or whatever for that?"

"Benrey. I wouldn't be sitting here asking this if it had worked. And I can't take anything else, medicine wise, without, uh, risking my actual life over dosages. so just. Do you?"

His words are still so quiet. And he looks _exhausted_. Had he even slept? Benrey stared for a moment before nodding. And then quietly singing out an altered form of calm down blue™.

They watched as Freeman's shoulders slowly dropped, brows unfurrowed, and overall tension melt. They barely stopped the sweet voice before it changed to reflect their emotional response to the equally quiet, and incredibly _soft_ "thank you" that followed.

"So, uh. What are the chances I can. Stay here? On the couch?"

Benrey's train of thought, which was already slowly careening toward a cliff made of the question "what do I do", very quickly and efficiently flung itself off that cliff. So they simply shifted to be mostly laying again. And then held their arms open while Freeman squinted at them as the sweet voice slowly dissipated around them. They both stayed like that for a long moment before Freeman sighed and mumbled "yeah alright".

Then took his glasses off, setting them and his phone on the coffee table before flopping down and. Oh. Burying his face in Benrey’s chest. And then promptly fell asleep. Benrey froze, arms still up, then slowly reached over to grab their own phone and open a text chat.

**bennyboi** : yo i think your brothers dying. he just walked into the living room and basically faceplanted on the couch

 **other freeman** : No, I know what's up. It's fine. Just let him be.

 **bennyboi** : what

 **other freeman** : If you want details, ask him later. But seriously it isn't that big of a deal, happens sometimes. Gonna be more of a mess than usual for a few days then back to his regularly scheduled messiness.

 **bennyboi** : this helps with nothing you are the worst

Well, no one's dying so that's good right? They sat their phone down, ignoring the quiet noise saying John texted back again. They picked the controller up again and very carefully rested their arms on Freeman's back. They opened back into the game and continued playing, humming more calm down blue™. They weren't really sure how much time passed as they played, just that they really weren't expecting Freeman's alarm to go off when it did.

After a second, Freeman groaned and reached over to grab his phone. He lifted his head just enough to glare at it while turning the alarm off before dropping both his head and arm. Benrey lifted their arms, still holding the controller, and just waited. It took a minute for Freeman to actually sit up.

He stretched and grabbed his glasses, tiles his head to the side with a hum, and asked, "hey how do you feel about French toast?"

"Wh. Why's your bread French?"

"I. It. Okay actually, that's a question for after I fully awake up. Okay so, can you get… the mixing bowl, whisk, eggs, milk, uhhh the thing of cinnamon sugar, bread, and a pan?" He stood as he listed everything off. Benrey responded with a vaguely affirmative noise, and Freeman started off toward his room with a yawn.

Benrey sat there for a moment before swinging their legs off the couch, dropping the controller, and clipping into the kitchen. They ended up putting everything next to the stove, aside from the pan, which obviously needed to be on the stove. They clipped back into the living room long enough to grab their phone to check Twitter and pointedly ignore the text from John. Twitter was, as usual, a nightmare of people reacting to some news thing or celebrity thing that they had no context for.

"Okay so!" Benrey absolutely did _not_ jump from Freemans sudden reappearance, and if someone told you that, that person is lying. "French toast is, actually, not French in origin apparently. It's just called that because it got popular there or something."

"That's dumb. Why's it need all this stuff to make it not-actually-French?"

"Because that’s just how food works. You put ingredients together and cook it. Or freeze it. Refrigerate. Bake. Whatever."

"... ingredience.."

"You know- wait. Actually no, I'm not going to ask. Anyway, you mix the egg, milk, and cinnamon together, dunk the bread in, then pan fry it."

Benrey hopped onto a free space on the counter and proceeded to just watch as Freeman did those things, vaguely paying attention as he talked about, uhh…

"- apparently works for -with?- Viktor, which is. Weird? Since they're just. Literally three slimes in a trench coat"

Ah. Slime Rancher infodump.

They glanced at their phone again, John text notification still there, and remembered something. "Oh, hey Freeman."

"Huh?"

"I uhhh texted John about, uh," they gestured at Freeman, "and he was all 'oh this is a Normal Human Problem but I won't tell you what, dumb little alien man.' So-"

"Okay, John would never say those words like that. And uh. I really have no idea what words to say to even begin explaining what my current problem is. I could… send links to things that explain?"

"L-m-a-o sure"

"I will actually kill you with this frying pan if you say text speech out loud again. Can you go tell everyone food is ready?"

"Fiiiiiine. Meanman."

It only took a couple of minutes to get the rest of the Science Team, and small little baby Freeman, to the kitchen. The not-actually-French toast was pretty good. So were the faces Freeman made at his phone while everyone slowly made their way through breakfast. Eventually, he sets his phone down and, after a moment, Benrey's buzzes in their hand.

They very quickly opened the text and then the first link. And after squinting at some of the words used, glanced up to see Freeman looking incredibly focused on eating. They backed out of the page and opened the next link. It only took one line before they realized why the last one used the words it did. Wait.

"Oh. Hold on."

They dropped their fork and very rapidly scrolled through their image gallery before sending one and then opening that second link again to read it. They listened, face blank, as Freeman unlocked his phone. And then choked on his toast.

**bennyboi:**

Very rapidly, several things happened:

Coomer tried, maybe _too much_ , to help Freeman with his choking situation.

Bubby and Tommy looked at Benrey and, in very different tones of voice, asked "what did you do?"

Baby Freeman dropped his cup of milk.

And Benrey simply started cackling.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the very small tf2 server I'm in for 1 dealing with me yelling about this for a whole 2 that image specifically and 3 just being fun in general?
> 
> Fun facts not in the story:  
> That other John text was just a handful of heart emojis bc John is just so used to 3 am Benrey texts and has figured out how to get them to Stop as quickly as possible (to not have a repeat of "1 space, send, repeat 29 times")  
> I'm also projecting "Tylenol is the only thing that works, but it doesn't always work enough and also makes my brain Very Slow" onto Gordon  
> No one in the science team is cis. But that doesn't mean any of them knows that. (Yes I include Benrey in the science team, as is stated in the ACAB stream, but otherwise ignore that stream and most of what's in the commentaries as far as what I use for canon)  
> Benrey technically shares a room with Tommy at this point, but would rather play games on the couch.  
> I specifically made a keyboard shortcut for the ™ symbol so I could use it 2 times.


End file.
